BCRC Mag Volume 1, 2014 #1 | Page 12

Turnitin Monday, 23 June 2014 8:27 AM Turnitin is a fantastic program for many reasons. Firstly, teachers can use it to create Originality reports to determine whether a student has copied and pasted information straight from another source or failed to cite material appropriately. Students with seemingly high levels of plagiarism can prompt questions such as: i. Did the student understand the task? ii. Does the student have poor note taking skill? iii. Does the student have poor time management skills and therefore, copied and pasted to meet the date due requirement? iv. Does the student know how to create proper citations? Answers to such questions can create some interesting teaching moments whilst providing concrete evidence for subjective decision making. However, for the purposes of this article I’d like to share with you some new Tii features you may or may not be aware of. Did you know these 12 facts? Well it’s actually a baker’s dozen. i) Turnitin will now accept Excel files. The Originality report will be generated based on the document’s ii) iii) iv) v) vi) vii) viii) ix) x) xi) text. File types also accepted include docx, ppt, pdf and html “Image” files can also be uploaded to Turnitin. This is especially good for Art students. Turnitin will accept file sizes up to 20Gb or 400 pages. (This will increase to 40Gb by the end of the year) Files can be uploaded to Turnitin via Dropbox and Google Drive. Sloodle will accept the setting up of groups which allows students to select their relevant teacher and upload to the right class. It also allows teachers to view other classes for the purpose of cross marking and moderation. You can set up an assignment for Peer marking. You can delete students from your course if they have enrolled with the incorrect email address. Once you do this, students cannot reenrol even if they have the Class ID and password. If you own an iPad you can download the Turnitin App for free and have the same accessibility as if working on your Mac or PC. In fact, no wifi…no problem, sync your assignments to your iPad and you can grade them offline. Primary students as young as Year 4 are using Turnitin for homework and creative writing tasks. Lucky last – You can use the Voice Over feature to add personalised audio comments for students who would respond better to this kind of feedback. Joomag Page 14