Monthly Archive for May, 2010

Cheating: A Gray Area

Published on May 27, 2010 in Plagiarism. 3 Comments Tags: , , .

A new study from the University of Nebraska—Lincoln examines the prevalence and perceptions of cheating among high school students.

“Students generally understand what constitutes cheating, but they do it anyway,” said Kenneth Kiewra, professor of educational psychology at UNL and one of the authors of the study. “They cheat on tests, homework assignments and when writing reports. In some cases, though, students simply don’t grasp that some dishonest acts are cheating.”

Key findings of the study show:

  • 89 percent said glancing at someone else’s answers during a test was cheating, but 87 percent said they had done that at least once.
  • Sixty-two percent said doing individual take-home tests with a partner was cheating, but 51 percent said they’d done so.
  • 23 percent said doing individual homework with a partner was dishonest, but 91 percent had done so.

The results suggest that out-of-class misdeeds are viewed less harshly than in-class cheating, Kiewra said—a dynamic that is likely caused by teacher monitoring in class, and, therefore, a greater risk of getting caught. Read the press release here.

WHAT’S THE POINT?

The presence of Turnitin Originality Checking is a front line deterrent from cheating for many students. It reinforces the instructor’s and institution’s position on academic integrity, and at the very least, makes them try a little harder.

References:

Kiewra, Kenneth. (May 11, 2010). Most High Schoolers Cheat — But Don’t Always See It As Cheating. Retrieved May 12, 2010, from http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-05/uon-mhs051110.php .

Turnitin Newsletter – May 2010

Published on May 21, 2010 in Plagiarism. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

View the original Turnitin Newsletter for May 2010

Effectiveness ChartTurnitin Works to Reduce Unoriginal Content and Plagiarism

Research results reveal that when secondary schools and higher education institutions use Turnitin® consistently and over a period of years, students become better writers and researchers—they create work with more original content and learn appropriate ways to use and cite source material. With continued use of Turnitin, educators can reinforce appropriate ways to use information year after year, across all disciplines.

Today’s educators are struggling to promote academic integrity at all levels as they develop tomorrow’s writers and researchers. Independent research studies reveal that student cheating, fueled by heated competition and pressure, is pervasive. Turnitin helps motivate students to produce more original, properly cited work—giving teachers a powerful opportunity to teach about plagiarism. Download our effectiveness whitepaper.

Turnitin User EventTurnitin User Event – Denver, Colorado

The Turnitin User Event will bring together users at a variety of experience levels and will provide an opportunity to learn and connect with each other as well as the Turnitin team. This free 2-hour meeting will feature:

  • panel discussions on best practices.
  • brief presentations by “power users” on user-chosen topics.
  • a sneak preview of our next-generation version of Turnitin.

This free event is scheduled for Sunday, June 27, 2010 (3-5 PM) in Denver, Colorado—the opening day of the ISTE Conference (formerly called NECC). If you are planning on attending ISTE or will be in the area, we want to hear from you! Please click here to fill out an interest form.

NewsBits

Singaporean Universities Choose Turnitin

Turnitin has been adopted by all four universities in Singapore. Turnitin is used across the universities’ curricula and is available to tens of thousands of educators and students at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), National University of Singapore (NUS), Singapore Management University (SMU) and SIM University (UniSIM). Read more…

Identifying Potential Plagiarism In Translated Documents

iParadigms announced that it has licensed Language Weaver’s automated translation technology, enabling Turnitin to identify plagiarized content that has been translated from English into other languages. This capability will be incorporated into Turnitin by the end of 2010. Read more…

Scheduled Downtime

All Turnitin services and related websites may be unavailable for use during scheduled maintenance times. Times for these scheduled maintenance windows are the first and third Saturdays of each month, 7:00 AM to 11:00 AM Pacific time.

Events

Fourth International Plagiarism Conference

June 21 – 23, 2010
Northumbria University,
Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
iParadigms is a proud sponsor of this event that brings together the international educational community to share their experiences, expertise, and advice in creating a culture of honesty.
http://www.plagiarismadvice.org/conference

Turnitin User Event @ ISTE

June 27, 2010 @ 3:00pm (MDT)
Hyatt Regency Denver
Denver, Colorado
The Turnitin User Event will bring together users of all experience levels and provide them with an opportunity to learn and connect with each other as well as the Turnitin team.
http://turnitinusereventdenver.eventbrite.com/

ISTE 2010

June 27-30, 2010
Denver, Colorado
Visit the Turnitin booth (#2066) at ISTE 2010 to get a first look at what’s coming for Turnitin. ISTE 2010 (formerly NECC) is the premiere event for education technology professionals worldwide.
http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/2010/

View the original Turnitin Newsletter for May 2010

Engaging Students with Turnitin

Published on May 12, 2010 in Plagiarism. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Engaging StudentsTurnitin’s tagline is, “Prevent Plagiarism. Engage Students.” We get a lot of comments via our Blog, Twitter, and through other outlets about how Turnitin engages students.

Instructors and students are most familiar with the Turnitin Originality Checking part of the service. The originality reports provide an opportunity for instructors to connect with students to show them proper citation, to identify motivations for improper citation, and to address academic integrity. In other words, it gives instructors a teaching moment.

The PeerMark peer review service allows students to evaluate and learn from one another’s work. PeerMark provides an opportunity for students to develop critical thinking and writing skills through collaboration.

The GradeMark paperless grading service empowers instructors to give students meaningful and legible feedback, not confined to red ink scrawled in the margins of a paper. By providing richer feedback, students can better apply that feedback to their writing.

With Turnitin, there are new opportunities to engage students, better ways to involve them in the writing process, better ways to help them internalize what they are taught. Learn more about engaging students through our WriteCycle Academy series of webinars. Sign up for a live webinar or download previously recorded sessions at:
http://turnitin.com/static/writecycle_academy.html

How do you engage your students with Turnitin? Share your story in the comments section.

Don’t have PeerMark or GradeMark activated yet? Talk to your Turnitin account administrator and let them know you want it!

Social Media in Higher Ed

Published on May 10, 2010 in Plagiarism. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Over 80 percent of college faculty are using social media according to a survey released by Babson Survey Research Group in collaboration with New Marketing Labs and Pearson Learning Solutions on May 4th, 2010. The study found that a majority of respondents (59%) said they have more than one social networking account and nearly 25 percent have four or more accounts. Thirty percent of respondents use social networks to communicate with students, and 1/3 use them to connect with peers.

“College faculty have embraced social media and a majority have integrated some form of these tools into their teaching,” said Jeff Seaman, Ph.D., co-director of the Babson Survey Research Group. “While some faculty remain skeptical, the overall opinion is quite positive, with faculty reporting that social media has value for teaching by over a four to one margin.”

You may be saying, “but I’m too old for this social media stuff.” Not true! There were only small differences in usage based on age, stage in career, gender, tenure status, or device ownership.

Pearson Social Media Survey 2010

We’ve recently jumped into the social media scene ourselves. We launched a few Twitter accounts (@turnitin and @WriteCycle for instructors and administrators, and @WriteCheck for students) where we share relevant information related to Turnitin, PeerMark, GradeMark, and hot topics on education. We’re also developing an engaging user community, so stay tuned for updates.

References:
Chmura, M. (May 4, 2010). Sociable Professors. Retrieved May 5, 2010, from http://www3.babson.edu/Newsroom/Releases/socialmediafaculty.cfm.
Levy, J., Seaman, J., Tinti-Kane, H. (n.d.). Social Media in Higher Education: The Survey. Retrieved May, 5, 2010, from http://www.slideshare.net/PearsonLearningSolutions/pearson-socialmediasurvey2010.

Announcing Turnitin2 – Coming in September

Published on May 6, 2010 in WriteCycle. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , , , .

Turnitin2 SchematicThanks to our customers’ suggestions and ideas, Turnitin will soon be better than ever. We are pleased to announce that in September 2010, we are launching a new version of our solution called Turnitin2 (previously announced as WriteCycle2).

For the first time, users will enjoy a solution with full integration of our three essential instructional support tools: OriginalityCheck plagiarism prevention, PeerMark peer reviewing and GradeMark paperless grading. This integration is a major step in providing a productivity-enhancing “all-in-one” perspective of students’ work.

With Turnitin2, you will:

  • Work with a single, “all-in-one” view of a student’s paper in its original format, including styled text, graphics and photos.
  • Save time and increase productivity with improved tools and a unified user interface.
  • View feedback from all sources in one comprehensive, multi-layered view.
  • Maintain academic integrity and engage students in their development as learners.

Current Turnitin and WriteCycle customers in English and Spanish will automatically experience the Turnitin2 improvements when they log in. Additional versions in our ten other supported languages are in development and will be announced as the dates become available.

Download the Turnitin2 Flyer for more details

Turnitin WriteCycle Teaches 21st Century Skills

Published on May 2, 2010 in Plagiarism. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

At the Virtual School Society Conference on April 22, 2010, we presented on “Improving Tomorrow’s Writers Today with WriteCycle.” Given today’s global economy and the ever-evolving workplace, today’s students need to learn how to develop inquiry, collaborate effectively, think critically, solve problems, make decisions and exhibit technical proficiency. Instructors often struggle with finding a balance between teaching students mandatory course content while enhancing their students’ 21st century skills, especially if it requires technological savvy. Many instructors are skeptical of whether technology is really the answer to better preparing students for tomorrow or whether it is just another distraction from important instructional content. In our presentation, we illustrated how WriteCycle can give instructors an opportunity to teach both content and skills while saving them time and increasing the amount and type of feedback on student writing.

As students write about course content and engage in higher-level cognitive thought processes, they learn better. Add the collaborative and self-assessment tools available through WriteCycle, and students begin to use technology to inquire, collaborate, make decisions, problem solve, etc. Instructors also can manage the assignments and feedback on those assignments all within the online learning environment.

Our whitepaper titled, “WriteCycle: A Web-Based Technology for Collaborative Writing and Learning” further discusses how WriteCycle correlates with the Partnership for 21st Century Skills framework and the American Association of Librarians standards for 21st Century Skills. We invite you to take a look.