Using the TurnitinUK Service via WebCT

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Using the TurnitinUK Service via WebCT

• Jim Sharp - CAP
• Hotline - plagiarism_at_qmu.ac.uk

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Overview

• The extent of plagiarism in the UK
• QMU approach avoiding the arms war
• Introduction to the TurnitinUK service
• Embedding TurnitinUk within WebCT
• Student use within WebCT
• Interpreting originality reports
• Conclusions

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The Bigger Picture.

• 17 March 2006 - One in three students cheats,
  survey finds
• One-third of students admit to cheating at
  university by copying ideas from books or the
  internet, according to the results of a survey
  published today in The Times Higher Education
  Supplement. The statistics come to light only a
  day after Oxford University warned that
  plagiarism by its students could threaten the
  value of its degrees.
• The survey, based on 1,022 undergraduates at 119
  universities and colleges, found that one in six
  students admitted they copied work from friends
  while 10 per cent said they looked for essays
  online.
• Male students were more likely to copy work
  from their friends (21 per cent) than female
  students (14 per cent), the study revealed.
• Nearly half of male students (45 per cent) said
  they copied from their friends for group
  assignments, compared with 29 per cent of female
  students, the researchers discovered. ?

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Student View?
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Essay Banks (Cheat Sites)
Essays can be available for as little as 4.99

• www.oxbridgewriters.com
• www.ukessays.com (notorious try it!)
• http//www.academicdb.com/ (does your essay
  feature here?)
• www.lawteacher.net/essaybank.html
• www.DissertationsAndAssignments.com
• www.essayrelief.co.uk www.EssayAcademy.com
• www.nonplagiarizedessays.co.uk

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Essay Banks (Good Guys)

• www.coursework.info
• www.thestudentroom.co.uk

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Exercise your experience
A recent survey of both students and staff at
Northumbria University ascertained the
proportions of students who believed certain
forms of cheating to be common (Dordoy,
2002). From your experience and intuition
complete the supplied pro-forma with your best
guess at these proportions (the percentages need
not add up to 100) Then check your answers with
the next slide.
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Plagiarism in the UK
A recent survey of both students and staff at
Northumbria University ascertained the
proportions of both staff and students who
believed certain forms of cheating to be common
(Dordoy, 2002).
Copying a few paragraphs from a book/internet
un-cited
Copying most of an assignment from some source
Downloading a whole essay from a cheat site on
the internet
Buying an essay from a ghost-writing service
Cheating in an exam
Making up data for a project or lab class
Working with another student on work that is
meant to be individual
Passing off others ideas/images/designs as your
own
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The QMU Approach - 1

• One of the key elements of our approach is to
  avoid a them and us situation caused by a
  perception of being policed
• It is tempting to believe that a problem
  exacerbated by ICT (eg the Internet) can be
  solved by ICT (eg the TurnitinUK service)
• Cole Kiss (2000) describe a situation in
  American Universities where cheaters are using
  devices such as silent pagers and tiny video
  cameras to gain marks which in turn requires
  lecturers to deploy forensic linguistics to
  detect plagiarism
• They describe this as a dispiriting arms race
  and is certainly something we at QMU want to
  avoid.
• Already happening in TurnitinUK with Word macros.
  (YouTube video)

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The QMU Approach - 2

• Using workshops where appropriate, we are
  operating what Carroll Appleton (2001) describe
  as a balanced institutional response including
• Creating a climate that discourages plagiarism
• Ensuring that students know what plagiarism is
• Teaching students paraphrasing/referencing skills
  to avoid plagiarism
• Encouraging tutors to design out opportunities
  for plagiarism
• Introducing the judicious use of electronic aids
  ie TurnitinUK

(Note that these steps should not be confused
with the need for a well defined disciplinary
procedure for when serious plagiarism is
detected. This procedure should be clearly
separated from the assessment process.) ?
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The QMU Approach - 3

• In practical terms plagiarism can occur as a
  result of

1. Poor academic practice (eg inadequate
paraphrasing/referencing) 2. Copying from
published material (eg cut paste from
internet) 3. Outright deception (eg
purchase/commisioning of work, collusion)

• Two further aspects at marking time are

1. Intention the students intention to
deceive the marker on a scale of 0 to 10 2.
Proportionality the amount of plagiarism
expressed as a of the submission
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TurnitinUK An introduction

• QMU is a registered user of the TurnitinUK
  service available via WebCT (also available at
  www.submit.ac.uk)
• This web-based service compares submitted
  assignments against
• a database of over 11.4 billion web pages (in
  2008)
• plus a range of electronic sources (eg Emerald,
  Gale InfoTrac)
• The CrossRef database
• plus thousands of previously submitted
  assignments (gt 65 million 2008)
• It then produces an originality report that
  identifies sections of matching text within a
  submission and providing links to the original
  sources.
• This service is free to all QMU tutors and
  students.
• The intention is that students will routinely
  submit their assignments to the service and use
  the originality reports generated as re-assurance
  that they have referenced appropriately. ?

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How it works

• John Baillie and some colleagues at Berkeley
  designed a method of analysing sound patterns
  which produced an n-dimensioned space footprint
  or dot diagram
• If this process was repeated on other patterns a
  clear match could be established between the
  footprints
• John used this research to develop the software
  that became TurnitinUK
• Note that the pattern cannot be reverse
  engineered into a student submission.

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Dot Diagram
Submitted Work
Footprint for matching
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Gale InfoTrac

• Thomson Gale (www.gale.com) is a business arm of
  The Thomson Corporation.
• It is a world leader in e-research and
  educational publishing for libraries, schools and
  businesses.
• Best known for
• accurate and authoritative reference content
• intelligent organisation of full-text magazine
  and newspaper articles
• more than 600 databases that are published
  online, in print, as eBooks and in microform.

Back
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CrossRef

• CrossRef is an association of publishers
  comprising some 500 members.
• Currently six of these have provided material to
  TiiUK
• Association for Computing Machinery
• BMJ Publishing Group Ltd.
• Elsevier
• Institute of Electrical and Electronics
• IUCr (International Union of Crystallography)
• The New England Journal of Medicine
• Taylor Francis
• Wiley-Blackwell
• Originally the CrossRef database (called
  confusingly CrossCheck!) was intended to check
  material submitted for publication for plagiarism.

Back
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TurnitinUK the process

• For any assessed piece of work, the Tutor uses
  Build mode in a WebCT module to create a
  TurnitinUk assignment, this appears as a
  Content Link

• When ready, the student submits work via the
  relevant assignment link in WebCT. The TurnitinUK
  service then matches the work against the various
  databases, generating an originality report for
  the student

• Student checks the matches in their originality
  report and makes any necessary changes to the
  work. The student can resubmit for a further
  check.

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Other Class Data Sources

• The matching process includes all previous
  student submissions to the Service
• This includes those to another tutors class
  area, even in another HE Institution.
• If a match is found across areas, the service
  will not display the matched text because of the
  TurnitinUk privacy policy
• Instead the student is advised to seek permission
  from the other tutor to view the text
• If this happens you and that tutor might want to
  consider the implications

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Adding Content Link
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TurnitinUK Assignment First steps
Click on the Create TurnitinUk Assignment button
Enter a title eg First Essay and click Create
button
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TurnitinUK Assignment setting up

• Enter a title
• Enter a possible mark for this component if using
  GradeMark
• Start date will be set to current date
• Due date is the submission deadline
• Post date is the date that results will be
  returned to students if using GradeMark
• Click on (more options) for advanced assignment
  options

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TurnitinUK Assignment - defaults
Standard QMU settings for defaults now click on
submit button
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TurnitinUK Assignment the link

• This is one of the icons available from CAP web
  site
• The default value is

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TurnitinUK Assignment tutor inbox
In Teach Mode clicking on the assignment link
displays the assignment inbox

• Clicking on a student name will display all the
  submissions by that student to TurnitinUL links
  within the module
• Clicking on a report icon will display the
  contents of that originality report
• The submit button allows a tutor to submit a
  piece of work
• The Roster Sync button makes sure that all
  students on the module are also enrolled on the
  TurnitinUk assignment (good for late enrolments)
• To edit the assignment settings click on the
  edit assignment button in top row
• To download a student submission to your local
  file space, select it and click on the download
  button or select all and use the download
  button for a zip version.

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Please remember

• Academic judgement is essential when interpreting
  the report
• scores can be misleading
• try including/excluding reference list/quotations
• always check matches for referencing
• look out for plagiarism rings
• take care with other class data situations
• The TurnitinUK service is only one tool in the
  QMU plagiarism toolbox

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Restrictions

• Please be aware that the TurnitinUK links are
  only live for the lifetime of the module. This
  means that when the module is archived and
  restored (or copied forward to a new academic
  session)
• the link will be there but will not link to the
  previous student submissions. You can however
  create a new one and a new assignment.
• If you are using Grademark, you will no longer be
  able to see the marked-up submissions but the
  marks will still be in the gradebook.
• In practice this means that current QMU practice
  via Assignment drop boxes/ School Office
  downloads should be continued.

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How Students submit - 1
When a student clicks on the TurnitinUK link for
the first time, they will see a screen similar to
the following
They can now click on the submit icon to submit
a piece of work for checking by TurnitinUK.
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How Students submit - 2

• Note the restriction on file types
• First and last names will be provided by webCT
• Student must supply a submission title
• Clicking on Browse provides access to the
  student file space where they can navigate to the
  piece of work to be submitted

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Students inbox
Until the report is generated there will be a
greyed out icon in the students inbox
Once generated the icon will have a colour and a

• The student can now click on the coloured icon to
  view the originality report

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Signposts to Resources

• Hotline - plagiarism_at_qmu.ac.uk
• Website http//mcs.qmu.ac.uk/plagiarism
• Introduction to originality reports
• Examples of originality reports
• This presentation online
• Tutor Quick Start Guide
• Student Quick Start Guide
• List of Cheat sites
• Access to referencing guides via Library website
• Access to relevant QMU regulations
• Hints on assessment design (Leeds University)
• Plagiarism Workshops for staff
• Teaching paraphrasing and referencing skills
• Designing assessments to minimise plagiarism
• CAP website
• http//www.qmu.ac.uk/cap/appsCAP-TurnitinUk.htm
• Study Skills website
• www.qmu.ac.uk/studyskills

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Bibliography

• Franklyn-Stokes,A. and Newstead,S. (1995),
  Undergraduate cheating who does what and why?
  Studies in Higher Education, 20(2), 159-172.
• Newstead, S., Franklyn-Stokes, A. and Armstead,
  P. (1996), Individual differences in student
  cheating, Journal of Educational Psychology, 88
  (2), 229-241.
• Dordoy, A. (2002), Cheating and Plagiarism
  Staff and Student Perceptions at Northumbria,
  University of Northumbria Conference on
  Plagiarism on-line http//www.jiscpas.ac.uk/imag
  es/bin/AD.doc
• Carroll, J. and Appleton, J. (2001), Plagiarism
  A Good Practice Guide, Oxford Brookes University
  Guide Series on-line http//www.jiscpas.ac.uk/ap
  ppage.cgi?USERPAGE6202
• Cole, S. and Kiss, E. (2000), What can we do
  about student cheating?, About Campus, May-June,
  5-12.
• Other reading Plagiarism and Poor Academic
  Practice A Threat to the Extension of
  e-Learning in Higher Education? Mike Hart, King
  Alfreds University College, Winchester, UK, and
  Tim Friesner, University College Chichester, UK
  on-line http//www.ejel.org/volume-2/vol2-issue1
  /issue1-art25.htm