Transcript Document

A brief tour of Turnitin.com
Welcome to Our Tour of
Turnitin.com!
This tour is designed to provide
some history and facts on the
growing problem of Internet
plagiarism, as well as to give
potential users a basic idea how
our system works.
The slides included in this tour
include screenshots from actual
Turnitin.com accounts, and
show a how students, faculty,
and administrators use
Turnitin.com on a regular basis.
We hope the tour will be
informative and educational,
and welcome administrators and
academic officials giving
presentations on our service to
make use of this tour.
Internet plagiarism is on the rise. At Turnitin.com, we have
been tracking the growth of this problem for over five years,
and we know it is only getting worse. A recent Gallup poll
indicates the quality of our educational system has become
one of our most pressing concerns, and we believe Internet
plagiarism is partly at fault. Here are some other recent stats
and facts:
• 80% of college-bound students admit to cheating on
schoolwork, yet 95% of them never get caught - Who's Who
Among American High School Students
• 90% of students believe cheaters are either never caught
or have never been appropriately disciplined - US News and
World Report poll
• Most employers and college professors say in surveys that
high school graduates aren't prepared to succeed in jobs or
college - from an article by Michael DeCourcy Hinds: Mixed
Signals on Education
• 257 chief student affairs officers across the country
believe that colleges and universities have not addressed the
cheating problem adequately - from a study by Ronald M.
Aaron and Robert T. Georgia: Administrator Perceptions of
Student Academic Dishonesty in Collegiate Institutions
Plagiarism.org was the world’s
first Internet-based plagiarism
prevention system. It got it start
in 1995, when Dr. John Barrie,
then a graduate student at UC
Berkeley, decided to create a
web portal for students to share
and critique each other’s papers.
Soon, however, he found that
students were not only sharing
their papers, but plagiarizing
them as well.
Dr. Barrie created a rudimentary
program to curb this online theft
in his own classroom, and soon
found there was a strong
demand for the program among
his peers. The first version of
Plagiarism.org was launched a
few months later. Plagiarism.org
remains online today, and is still
a useful source of information
for anyone who’d like to learn
more about Internet plagiarism
and the technologies behind
Turnitin.com.
Turnitin.com got its start in
1997 as the “paper submission
portal” for Plagiarism.org. It has
since evolved into the web’s
most visited plagiarismprotection website, and now
serves thousands of schools and
educators all over the world.
Visitors to the site can read
extensive testimonials from
actual users of Turnitin.com,
learn about present and
upcoming services, find links to
articles on our service in the
press, give our free trial a spin,
and even sign up online.
Registered users access their
home pages by logging in, by
clicking on “user login” from
any page in our website.
Logging In
Every user of Turnitin.com has
a personal user profile. When
logging in, users are asked to
enter their profile information so
that we can display their
homepage(s). The four possible
user types are:
Free trial: this is a special user
type with limited access to our
system. Free trial users have a
basic interface for submitting
and viewing up to 5 papers.
Student: can submit papers,
view their class histories, and
use Peer Review.
Faculty: can submit papers,
view Originality Reports, create
assignments, and manage
classes.
Administrator: can monitor
usage of a school or
department’s account, create
and change profiles and
passwords, and manage billing
and renewal issues.
Faculty Pages
This is a faculty homepage. This
particular faculty member has
created three current classes.
Clicking on the name of a given
class will enter that class and
enable faculty to view
Originality Reports, create
assignments, and use other class
functions.
Pulldown menus on this page
allow users to modify class
viewing options based on year
and activation status. Other
options allow users to archive,
unarchive, and delete classes.
Important class information,
such as enrollment passwords
and class names, can also be
modified from the faculty home
page.
Faculty Report Inbox
Faculty users have an inbox for
each of their classes at
Turnitin.com. Every time a
student (or a teacher) submits a
paper, an Originality Report is
generated and appears, normally
within 24 hours, in the
appropriate class inbox. From
the inbox, users can quickly see
any paper’s color-coded “overall
similarity index.” Clickable
icons allow users to view both
the originally submitted
document and the Originality
Report for any given paper.
The faculty inbox functions
much like many popular email
programs, and allows users to
sort, archive, and view papers
according to a variety of criteria.
Clickable student names also
allow faculty to view the to-date
submissions of any current
student.
Submitting a Paper
There are two ways to submit
papers to Turnitin.com: students
can submit papers individually
or faculty can submit papers for
their students.
In this case, the paper is being
submitted by the instructor. As
you can see, the student’s name
and ID number have been
added, the paper has been given
a title, and “assignment 1” has
been selected.
The main text is then pasted into
the text box by copying it from
a digital source, such as MS
Word, and pasting it into the
box. Additional information,
such as an abstract or
bibliography, can also be pasted
in at this time. Clicking on
“submit” uploads the paper into
our systems. We then send off a
digital receipt of the submission,
and the Originality Report can
be viewed at the faculty inbox
within 24 hours.
Submission Receipts
Students and instructors receive
a digital receipt for every paper
uploaded to Turnitin.com. These
pages can be printed to serve as
confirmation of a successful
upload, if desired. Students
receive a second copy of the
receipt sent to their email
address.
Originality Reports
Originality Reports are accessed
by clicking on the Originality
Report icon from any paper in
the faculty inbox. This
particular paper received a high
“overall similarity index,”
which means we found
matching online sources for a
very high percentage (over
75%) of the paper. The red text
corresponds with material that
can be found at the website at
the displayed link.
Often, a paper has matches to
more than one online source; in
such cases all relevant addresses
are displayed and linked to their
online location.
Users also have the option of
clicking on “dsc,” or “direct
source comparison.” This
function not only opens up a
new window to the suspect
source, but also underlines
specific matching passages,
making comparison easy.
Direct Source Comparison
This page shows two
overlapping browser windows.
The second window has been
opened using the “direct source
comparison” function, and links
to a site on the Internet, in this
case from Germany. The top
window is opened to the
Originality Report from the
preceding page.
Note how Direct Source
Comparison not only indicates
the suspect source, but also
underlines any matching text.
Every source uncovered by our
searches is linked and can be
easily viewed in this manner.
Database Links
This is an Originality Report
showing links to several
sources. The last link,
“Database link 1,” leads to a
paper located in our database of
previously submitted student
papers.
Because the paper in question is
the intellectual property of its
author, we do not have
permission to share its contents
without his or her expressed
consent. Clicking on this link
opens up a special “permission
request” window, as shown on
the following page.
Permission Requests
When you click on a link to a
paper in our database, this
window is displayed. This form
allows us to send a request to
view the paper in question
directly to its author.
Note: Although we will indicate
the sources of any suspected
plagiarism within our database,
we are never at liberty to
distribute or in any way disclose
their contents. When permission
to view a paper is granted
through this form, a copy of the
paper in question must be
personally sent by the paper’s
author.
Class Roster
Every registered faculty
member also has access to a
complete roster of students
signed up for his or her class at
Turnitin.com. This roster is a
dynamic list that contains
linkable email addresses, a
“send password” function, and a
click-through link to any
student’s personal Turnitin.com
history for a given class.
Student lists are sortable using a
variety of criteria, including
name, email address, and date
enrolled.
Class Preferences
The faculty preferences page
allows users to adjust global and
class preferences. With global
preferences, users may adjust
various aspects of their
Turnitin.com account. With class
preferences, instructors may:
- Allow students to anonymously
read and review peer papers
- Provide students access to their
own Originality Report results
- Enable “fast track turnaround,”
which posts reports as soon as they
are generated and closes the 24hour “re-submission window” for
students.
- Create a class link for students
accessible from the student
homepage
Users may access detailed class
information including paper
submission details, enrollment,
and a summary of originality
reports by clicking on the
“statistics” button. Finally, users
may transfer a class to another
registered Turnitin.com user by
clicking on the “transfer” button.
Student Pages
This is a student homepage.
This student is enrolled in three
classes, one of which (in black)
has been de-activated by his or
her instructor.
Students enter classes just like
faculty, by clicking on the name
of the class they want to enter.
Students also have the option of
deleting classes to which they
have not yet submitted any
papers.
Class Portfolio
The student class portfolio page
displays a list of paper and Peer
Review submissions by any
student for a given class.
Depending on the preferences
set by the faculty member who
created the class, students can
also see Originality Report
results.
Items in the class history page
are sortable by a variety of
criteria, including date
submitted, assignment number,
and title.
Assignments
This page shows the
assignments created for this
class. Clicking on the name of
any assignment allows students
to view details on a given
assignment, such as paper
length or teacher comments.
The status column displays the
current status of the assignment.
Papers or peer reviews not
submitted by the due/end date
are overdue. Additionally, peer
review assignments display the
number of reviews completed
out of the total number of peer
reviews assigned for a given
assignment.
Peer Review
Peer Review is a powerful
learning tool that allows
students to anonymously read
and review each others papers.
Students using Peer Review
respond to a set of topic and
rubric questions that are chosen
by their instructor. Each student
may access his or her review
from either the class portfolio or
Peer Review pages.
For more information on Peer
Review, please view the Peer
Review tutorials.
Administrator pages
This is an administrator
homepage. As you can see, this
particular administrator is
managing two separate
accounts. Both accounts have
separate accounts that may be
managed by sub-administrators
if the administrator so desires.
Administrators have the option
of breaking down their accounts
however they like, depending on
the size and type of account
they are managing.
Instructors
Administrators can monitor the
instructors using their accounts
by visiting the “instructors”
page of the site. This page
allows administrators to activate
and deactivate instructors, email
individual instructors, and drop
instructors that have not yet
submitted items to your
Turnitin.com account.
Instructor Statistics
Clicking on the name of any
instructor on the previous page
opens up the instructor statistics
page, which allows
administrators to view the
classes and usage statistics for
that instructor. Administrators
have the power to turn
individual classes on and off by
using the green and red toggle
switch on the far left.
Note: Although administrators
have access to the usage
statistics and results summaries
for faculty and their classes, at
no time are administrators given
access to Originality Reports or
Peer Reviews; these remain the
property of individual faculty
and their students.
Preferences
The preferences page of the
account administrator section
allows administrators to assign
and remove administrators for
any existing sub-accounts, as
well as to modify account
names and enrollment
passwords.
If a given institution has schoolwide policies regarding the
distribution of student property
such as Originality Reports or
Peer Reviews, administrators
can elect to lock the preferences
at given settings for faculty
using the account.
Help Pages
Most pages found within the
user sections of Turnitin.com
have corresponding online help
pages. These pages offer
detailed explanations of the
functions of any given page, and
explain, where applicable,
points of possible confusion.
Additional help is always
available by downloading our
user manuals or, especially for
new users, viewing our new
user tutorial.
Additionally, our helpdesk
([email protected]) is
available 24 hours to help with
any other problems.
Thanks for taking the time to
learn more about Turnitin.com.
The goal of this tour was to give
you a basic idea what you might
expect as a user of our service;
there are many other pages and
advanced functions not touched
upon here that are explained in
greater depth online and in our
user manuals.
Thanks for supporting us in the
ongoing fight against digital
plagiarism. Good luck!