Turnitin® Use at a Canadian University
While the text-matching tool, Turnitin®, has traditionally been used to deter and detect plagiarism, more recently, instructors have started to use this tool for formative self-assessment. To describe Turnitin®’s use in practice and to explore perceptions of this tool, we surveyed 940 students, te...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education
2018-10-01
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| Series: | Canadian Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/cjsotl_rcacea/vol9/iss2/4 |
| Summary: | While the text-matching tool, Turnitin®, has traditionally been used to deter and detect plagiarism, more
recently, instructors have started to use this tool for formative self-assessment. To describe Turnitin®’s use in
practice and to explore perceptions of this tool, we surveyed 940 students, teaching assistants, and instructors
at a Canadian university. Our findings indicate that Turnitin® was more commonly used for plagiarism
detection than for formative self-assessment. The majority of respondents had positive views of Turnitin®, and
70% of students stated that they had no concerns about using this tool. Despite these positive findings,
content analysis of open-ended responses indicate that students experience increased anxiety of being falsely
accused of plagiarism and have concerns about their work being stored in the Turnitin® database. Our findings
lead us to conclude that there is a need for more information and improved communication about Turnitin®
for all three groups. |
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| ISSN: | 1918-2902 1918-2902 |