An evaluation of the use of Turnitin for electronic submission and marking and as a formative feedback tool from an educator's perspective

The aim of this project was to pilot plagiarism detection software and online marking, evaluating its use with staff on a first year undergraduate module within the psychology department at a UK university. One hundred and sixty undergraduate psychology students submitted three assignments via Turnitin, and staff used the software to check for instances of academic misconduct and marked submissions using the GradeMark feature in the software, providing online feedback to students. Eleven members of teaching staff took part in focus groups to gain insight into their experiences of using Turnitin in this manner, and this paper reports the findings. Results indicated that staff identified several strengths but also several weaknesses to the implementation of Turnitin and GradeMark. The OriginalityCheck feature received very positive evaluations due to its capacity to provide a clear and timely indicator of plagiarism levels in assignments and a useful formative learning tool for students from an educator perspective. Staff did however encounter some technical difficulties when using the software. In conclusion, for staff, the benefits of using Turnitin were clear, and it has the potential to be a very valuable asset to plagiarism detection and electronic marking. Introduction Generally, instances of plagiarism in higher education are increasing (Dahl, 2007) to the extent that academic dishonesty is well recognised globally as a growing issue (Butakov & Scherbinin, 2009; Selwyn, 2008). Many students plagiarise unintentionally due to a lack of understanding regarding correct referencing techniques (Ellery, 2008), and many do so deliberately, particularly due to the availability of the Internet as a research tool, which has “amplified the problem of plagiarism” (p. 125; Maddox, 2008). It appears that a large proportion of students believe Internet search engines to be their only means to research (Galvin, 2005), and deliberate plagiarism from the internet is not unusual due to the ease with which students can retrieve vast amounts of information (Warn, 2006) and the short time it takes to copy and paste into assignments (Cromwell, 2006; McMurtry, 2001). Despite attempts at increasing student awareness of plagiarism at the university in question, academic misconduct continues. Information is provided to students on academic integrity British Journal of Educational Technology Vol 44 No 4 2013 562–570 doi:10.1111/bjet.12054 © 2013 British Educational Research Association within handbooks, and in the past 2 years, the topic of academic misconduct has been specifically covered in first year tutorials in an attempt to deal with this issue. Yet these efforts have had a limited effect. Plagiarism detection software is frequently used by institutions, and Turnitin is an example that is used worldwide by more than 800 000 educators (The White Paper, 2010). Practitioner Notes What is already known about this topic • Instances of plagiarism within higher education continue to increase, and their investigation diverts a considerable amount of academic time away from teaching-related activities. • Plagiarism detection software is used by institutions internationally as a method of dealing with academic misconduct and Turnitin is an example of such. • Previously, the benefits to educators outside the UK of using Turnitin have been illustrated, including its effectiveness at reducing levels of plagiarism within student assessments. • Furthermore, responses to the implementation to Turnitin have been positive; educators find the software easy to use and save time in both marking activities and when assessing levels of plagiarism in student submissions. What this paper adds • The effectiveness of the implementation of Turnitin in the UK is under-researched, and findings here add support to those of the limited number of evaluations worldwide; educator perspectives of the software were positive, particularly the ability of the software to save time when marking electronically and also when assessing plagiarism. Furthermore, using Turnitin as a formative feedback tool enhanced student’s knowledge of academic misconduct and the quality of their academic writing. • Staff encountered limited difficulties with software usage, and problems that were faced are easily overcome with advances in the software and would benefit Turnitin users in the future. • Specific (bespoke) training sessions on e-marking and plagiarism-checking software are much more useful to educators than generic training. Staff appreciated their focused nature; training was more useful to them as it was directly relevant to their use of Turnitin. Implications for practice and/or policy • Positive evaluations by staff indicate the usefulness of Turnitin as a tool to transform marking and plagiarism detection, alongside providing a useful formative learning tool within universities. • Quicker marking due to the use of GradeMark within Turnitin to mark electronically and quicker identification of instances of academic misconduct positively impacts upon staff, creating increased staff time for other prioritised activities. • During the introduction of Turnitin in a department, staff training is particularly important and creating training of a specific nature rather than a general overview better equips educators to embrace electronic marking and plagiarism detection, which may be unfamiliar to the majority. Evaluation of Turnitin—an educator’s perspective 563 © 2013 British Educational Research Association The use of Turnitin has been piloted within postgraduate programmes at the university and was discussed as a method of detecting academic dishonesty within student assignments, alongside its use as a formative learning tool, allowing students to submit a “practice” submission and view their Originality Reports before final submission. While there have been positive responses from students, this has not been formally evaluated, and only involves a small subset of staff. The intention of the current study was to explore the possibility of a whole department adopting the change to e-marking and to assess the impact of using Turnitin as a formative learning tool. Preliminary research suggests the benefits of software implementation for staff are clear, effectively reducing levels of plagiarism (Baker, Thornton & Adams, 2008; Batane, 2010; Mannix, 2008), and many educators find the quality of student submissions increases (Coffey & Anyinam, 2012). While merely implementing Turnitin can effectively reduce plagiarism levels (Baker et al, 2008), the software can potentially be effective as a formative learning tool as students may lack knowledge of academic misconduct (Ryan, Bonanno, Krass, Scouller & Smith, 2009). In terms of functionality, staff have found the software easy to use, and any difficulties encountered were easily overcome (Heikes, 2006). Staff found it a faster method of marking (Henderson, 2008), and their workload was decreased (Coffey & Anyinam, 2012). This was particularly due to a reduction in the time staff spent searching for instances of academic misconduct (Williams, 2007) as Turnitin identifies potential instances of plagiarism, rather than staff having to search for evidence of this by hand (Sutherland-Smith & Carr, 2005). Not only this, through using Turnitin as a formative learning tool, ultimately student submissions should be of a greater quality, demonstrate correct referencing practices and contain fewer instances of plagiarism. As such, Turnitin is predominantly positively received by educators (Coffey & Anyinam, 2012). Despite this, it should be highlighted that while the Turnitin database is extensive, considering a variety of both published and Internet sources (Royce, 2003), it does not contain all work that has ever been published and it merely identifies instances of where texts match, thus facilitating the plagiarism detection process. Therefore, the detection of plagiarism still ultimately lies with the assessor (Sutherland-Smith & Carr, 2005), and new users should demonstrate caution if anticipating Turnitin will detect all instances of academic misconduct. While there is some international research to suggest the effectiveness of Turnitin in general (eg, Baker et al, 2008) to the researchers’ knowledge, the impact of implementing Turnitin specifically with academic teaching staff and assessing its use as a formative learning tool is yet to be illustrated in the UK. It is important to evaluate online marking and detection tools from an educator’s point of view to assess whether any specific issues need to be overcome, and whether the software can successfully be utilised formatively. Furthermore, staff training is crucial to the successful adoption of e-marking, and so the first part of this paper will evaluate staff perceptions of training received. Providing information about plagiarism to students has had limited impact in the university discussed here; therefore, it was felt that using Turnitin to educate students may have a greater impact. A seminar was developed to increase student’s knowledge of academic misconduct, outlining different types of plagiarism, and Turnitin was used to illustrate this. Students submitted a piece of work and generated an Originality Report, which was then discussed in detail; therefore, through using the software in this manner, students were able to learn how to improve their academic writing while increasing knowledge of plagiarism. It was also highlighted that while Turnitin detects most academic misconduct, tutors mark submissions and can still therefore detect additional plagiarism. Consequently, this study aimed to adopt electronic submission of assessments and electronic feedback systems via Turnitin on a core first year undergraduate module as a formative learning 564 British Journal of Educational Technology Vol 44 No 4 2013 © 2013 British Educational Research Association tool. Through specific, contextualised training, it also aimed to create a staff team able to use electronic submission and marking systems, to deliver effective electronic feedback to students and to identify possible cases of academic misconduct in a clear and timely way. Staff evaluations of the project were investigated in terms of strengths, weaknesses, barriers to implementation and suggestions for improvement.