Turnitin – a magic bullet?
Turnitin screencap (Subterfu9e 2007)
Purpose of case study
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Target audience: teaching staff, program coordinators, academic integrity breach
decision makers
Key issue being addressed: the appropriate use of text-matching software
programs like Turnitin
Purpose of the case: To facilitate discussion about the appropriate use of Turnitin to
manage plagiarism and assessment tasks
Materials and preparation needed to answer case:
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Copy of university academic integrity policy and procedures

Rees M and Emerson L (2009) ‘The impact that Turnitin has had on text-based
assessment practice’, International Journal for Educational Integrity 5(1) 20-29

Shaw C (2012) ‘Use of Turnitin software does not deter cheating, study finds’
Times Higher Education Supplement. 19th January
www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=418740

Devlin M (2006) ‘Policy, preparation and prevention: Proactive minimisation of
student plagiarism’ Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 28(1)
45-58
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Our research
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Policy analysis
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Only 39% of policies identified the institution as being
responsible for academic integrity
Only 33% of policies identified the use of a tool such as text
matching software to detect plagiarism
Interviews with 28 senior academic integrity stakeholders
at 6 Australian universities
No. 1 recommendation for good practice:
 Provide appropriate and on-going professional development for
all staff in relation to academic integrity policy and process.
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Case Study: Florence
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Florence teaches a communications and academic writing program
in a business studies faculty.
The faculty has a policy that students must attach a Turnitin report to
all of their assessment tasks.
In orientation programs, students are told about how Turnitin will
detect correlations between their writing and any online research
sources, or previously submitted versions of the same assignment
from other students
They are told that 'the closest to zero they get in their Turnitin report,
the better'.
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Students get worried
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Florence’s students are worried, and tell her how they struggle to
strip out quotes and paraphrases in their work to get it down to a
zero result.
Florence advises students that they shouldn't focus too much on the
Turnitin scores, but should focus on writing well in response to the
question and assignment instructions, make sure that they
acknowledge their sources.
Florence tells them students that of course the teachers who are
marking their assignments in other subjects will double-check the
Turnitin report, most likely to ensure that no outrageous plagiarism
has occurred, but that their grades have no real correlation with the
Turnitin scores.
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Staff are misusing
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Florence later comes across a memo from the sub-dean of the
Faculty to new sessional teaching staff with instructions about how
to use Turnitin.
This memo is accompanied with a table that matches a range of
Turnitin scores with recommended assignment grade scores, with
zero percent from Turnitin in the high distinction bracket.
When Florence talks about this to her colleagues, she is told that
other teachers like Turnitin because it has cut down on their
workload: not only does it help streamline marking, it also means
that subject coordinators don't have to rewrite assignment questions
for essays and reports, which they would normally do to avoid
students copying from previous year's work.
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Questions for discussion
1.
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Does your university policy say anything about the use of textmatching software programs like Turnitin?
If it does, is the program presented as a plagiarism detection tool or
an academic integrity educative tool?
How might text-matching software programs like Turnitin be used to
help students avoid plagiarism and aid teaching staff in educating
students about the value of academic integrity?
Brainstorm other uses of Turnitin to consider how it might be usefully
used to educate students about appropriate acknowledgement
practices
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References and resources
Bretag, T., Mahmud, S., East, J., Green, M., James, C., McGowan, U.,
Partridge, L., Walker, R. & Wallace, M. (2011). Academic Integrity
Standards: A Preliminary Analysis of the Academic Integrity Policies at
Australian Universities, Australian Universities Quality Forum, 29 June-1
July, Melbourne, Australia.
Bretag, T., Mahmud, S., Wallace, M., Walker, R., James, C., Green, M., East,
J., McGowan, U. & Partridge, L. (2011). Core elements of exemplary
academic integrity policy in Australian higher education, International
Journal for Educational Integrity, Vol 7(2), pp. 3-12, available online:
http://www.ojs.unisa.edu.au/index.php/IJEI/article/viewFile/759/574
Subterfu9e (2007), Turnitin screencap , digital image, accessed on 27 August
2012,
http://www.flickr.com/photos/subterfu9e/1433364455/ , This image is used
with permission under an Attribution 2.0 Creative Commons License.
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For further resources from the
Academic Integrity Standards Project,
please go to:
http://www.aisp.apfei.edu.au
Support for this project/activity has been provided by the Australian
Government Office for Learning and Teaching. The views in this project do
not necessarily reflect the views of the Australian Government Office for
Learning and Teaching.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Australia License
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