Skillful writing and prevention of plagiarism with Turnitin

Orientation material for teachers

21.1.2014

Minna Vänskä, Educational DeveloperStrategic Support for Research and Education

Contents

• What is plagiarism?

• How to support writing in own words and prevent plagiarism?

• Turnitin as a tool

• Guidelines of using Turnitin in Aalto University

• When to use Turnitin – during the course & during the degree program?

• How to create the Turnitin return box?

• How to inform students?

• Interpreting the Originality Check raport

• What if plagiarism suspected?

• Grading with Turnitin (Grademark)

• Formative feedback with Turnitin

• Let students check themselves – peer assessment

• Check your own texts • Questions and support

What is plagiarism?Autoplagiarism

• Reusing one’s own earlier work in new study attainments or publications

Plagiarism = unacknowledged borrowing. Common forms:

• Quotations or word-for-word citing without clear indication

• Minor changes to the source text

• Inadequate citing or referencing

• Copy and paste from an online source

• Direct translation without quotations

• Collusion – co-workers are not mentioned or peers’ work is included in an assignment that should have been produced independently

Source and detailed information:Aalto University Code of Academic Integrity and Handling Violations ThereofChapter 3.

How to support writing in own words and prevent plagiarism? (1/4)

• Information acquisition and academic writing are skills and therefore need to be trained– exploring sources and reading yourself– collecting sources and references into a reference manager– thinking and writing in own words (not copy-pasting and

modifying)– training writing as a process and making the most of feedback

(instead of a last-minute act)

• Training along the studies, also in small portions

How to support writing in own words and prevent plagiarism? (2/4)

Instead of one DL,

let students practice writing in phases.

A writing assignment

DL

DL1

DL2

DL3

How to support writing in own words and prevent plagiarism? (3/4)

(3) Write drafts and have them reviewed

(2) Decide on your purpose, and devise an approach that will

connect with users and is approved by your company/supervisor

(1) Examine, evaluate, and interpret your material

Rework, replan and redraft for

final review and approval

The finished document

(1) Work with the ideas and information

(4) Evaluate and revise the document

(3) Draft the document

(2) Plan the document

The Writing Process for Technical Documents (Source: Lannon, J. 2006. Technical Communication.)

Grading, including originality check, in

Tools for writing and assessment

Originality check and feedback in

Collecting source material and annotating with reference manager

Citing and bibliography with reference manager

How to support writing in own words and prevent plagiarism? (4/X)• Types of writing tasks

– the kind of writing students will be doing in the future– requires synthesizing information– …..

Turnitin as a tool

• submitting of assignments (Turnitin return box instead of email)

• originality check of texts against comparison databases– web pages– student papers and – library databases and publications.

Note: originality check is not perfect!

• originality check raport has to be interpreted– report identifies similarities and shows similarity index %– report does not identify plagiarism

• feedback and grading – GradeMark, QuickMark, PeerMark– student – tutor– peers

Save time in mechanical

handling and use it for guiding

Students become aware of avoiding plagiarism before

submitting

Students are treated equally

Use assessment criteria and

phrases effectively

Guidelines of using Turnitin in Aalto University

Inform Inform students of using Turnitin

Guide and grade Turnitin can be used for both guidance (mainly) and grading

Treat equally Use Turnitin equally for study attainments of all students of the course. Students can not refuse to use Turnitin if they wish to have their study attainment graded

Let students check It is recommended that students can check the originality before submitting for grading and have a chance to hear teacher’s interpretation of it

Late checks possible Turnitin Originality Check can be used for an individual study attainment if plagiarism is suspected, in spite of not using it during the course. Checking originality is a part of the evaluation and grading

Always interpret Always interpret the originality check raports (the similarity% is not enough for conclusions)

If suspected, follow the procedure

If plagiarism suspected, follow the procedure of handling the violations of academic integrity. ”It is recommended to go through the originality raport with the student before contacting the investigator.”

Source and detailed information:Aalto University Code of Academic Integrity and Handling Violations ThereofChapter 5 (Turnitin referred as “Aalto University electronic system”)

When to use Turnitin during the course?

During the course/thesis process

AssignmentInstructions

Guidance during the study process

Grading of an assignment or a thesis

Turnitin return box(es) for submitting(s) established

• assignment instructions

• assessment criteria can be shown for students (the same to be used in grading in Turnitin)

Turnitin QuickMark and Peermark for giving feedback

• originality check can be practiced (before final grading)

• originality check not necessarily needed in every phase of writing or in every sub assignment

Submissions into Turnitin return box

• originality check and grading in Turnitin (Moodle)

When to use Turnitin during the degree program?

1. year course, a writing assignment in a Candidate program

Other candidate level courses with writing assignments

Candidate’s thesis

1. year course, a writing assignment in a Master program

Master’s thesis

1. year course, a writing assignment in a doctoral program

Doctoral thesis

Creating the Turnitin return box (1/3)• To create a Turnitin return box, you need a course workspace for it either in

Moodle https://moodle.aalto.fi/ or in https://turnitin.aalto.fi

• Which one to use?– It is recommended to use Moodle. It is a common, interactive learning environment for all

courses in Aalto. It is familiar to many students already. It is easier to manage Teacher rights and co-operation in the Moodle workspace

– Turnitin.com can be used in addition to Moodle, if you want to see a list of Turnitin return boxes of all of your course workspaces.

• Note! Before using Turnitin via Moodle for the first time, log in to https://turnitin.aalto.fi with your Aalto account and password and log out (This is a technical issue which is not needed after March 2014. You have to do this only once).

• Log in to Moodle https://moodle.aalto.fi/ with your Aalto account and password. Request a workspace for the course by filling in the form (Service/Help > Workspace Request) with a mention of “Turnitin return box template” to the field “name of the workspace you would like to copy”

Creating the Turnitin return box (2/3)• https://turnitin.aalto.fi

How to inform students

Interpreting the Originality Check raport

Interpreting the Originality Check raport – how much is too much?

Picture of an example of interpretations: Seppo Mallenius

Just OK, but be aware

Not good att all,FAILED

Unforgivable,FAILED

OK

Interpreting the Originality Check raport

What if plagiarism suspected?

• Follow the Aalto University procedure of handling violations– Aalto University Code of Academic Integrity and Handling Violati

ons Thereof– see a flow diagram version of the process (including

explanations)

Grading with Turnitin (Grademark)

Formative feedback with Turnitin

Let students check themselves – peer assessment and self assessment

Check your own texts

• As an instructor you can also check your own texts with Turnitin– User information > Allow quick submit: Yes

There is another product for researchers, iThenticate, without “course features”)

What if plagiarism suspected?> Code of Academic Integrity

• Aalto University Code of Academic Integrity and Handling Violations Thereof– in Into portal (Turnitin part of the code in Finnish only at the

moment)

– how to use Turnitin as a tool

– process of handling violations

Turnitin support

• pedagogical and technical support: turnitin@aalto.fi– ask for a Turnitin workshop– request consulting for course development with Turnitin– questions

• if plagiarism suspected, contact the investigator of your School (Head of Academic Affairs)

Reference managers

• saving references by “one click” during information searching

• citing aid• creation of bibliography by “one click”• annotating a reference text• portfolio of references• sharing of references.

Several software: RefWorks (supported by Aalto Library), BibTex, EndNote, Zotero, Mendeley etc.

Turnitin is not perfect

Original drawing: Silpiö 2013

Plagiarism

Plagiarism discovered with

Turnitin

Violations against the Code of Academic Integrity

Plagiarism in studies

Objective

To develop practices and teaching practices of

skillful writing and

prevention of plagiarism.

* oman alan kirjoittaminen,